The Shroud of Turin controversy is meaningless. You either believe or you don’t.
Actually no.
It’s a historic artifact. It has been examined by the same forensic methods used on other historic artifacts,including historic artifacts in criminal trials.
Except that it has been examined more thoroughly than any other historic artifact in history.
And the science evidence by a vast, overwhelming preponderance points to this being a burial shroud from the time of Jesus with an image formed in an inexplicable manner.
It does NOT prove the Resurrection. It does, however, point pretty strongly to the historicity of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
It is mentioned in the Bible—the curious scene where John and Peter run to the tomb and see the graveclothes. I never understood why the autbor bothered to mention that the graveclothes were lying there.
But it’s clear to me now that they had picked up those graveclothes and preserved them as relics. The author of JOhn’s gospel thought everyone knew about those relics, everyone knew they had been preserved, so he didn’t say anymore about them.
The Shroud does not prove the Resurrection but it makes it more believable. What the Shroud really does is show that it’s possible to preserve a relic of this sort over thousands of years, despite war and pillaging and the changes in governments and cultures.
If people consider an artifact really, really, really, really important they can defy impossible odds to preserve it.
And the Shroud is a testimony to the continuity of the Church over all these centuries. Perhaps the Church’s preservation of the story of Jesus is not garbled and mythologized but
actually
really
really
true?
Exactly. I don’t need a shroud. It is a fascinating subject for scientific debate. For the faithful it should be nothing more.